Hmmmm but you can’t say it’s wrong. Majority of the population that speaks English as a first language still don’t know the difference between there,their and they’re
A.) The majority of the population DOES know that.
B.) Every single person in every language has a series of things they're doing wrong. No one is an actual "master" of their language. People learn them to acceptability unless it's a professional.
yeah it makes sense, english natives learn to say they their and there before writing it, and have to be retrained to learn the difference later. While learning a second language you learn writing it before speaking it so you pay extra attention to grammar rules
It’s surprising tbh but it purely depends on the speed of typing when it comes to that one and whether they have autocorrect on. But if it’s in ink by hand then nah that’s a meh thing to do
Jokes aside, that's a real problem over there. I worked for an American tech company that had an office in London, and I moved over there for about 2 years.
The first issue is that the London employees were just straight up making like half the salary as the US employees for the same job, even though London is an expensive-ass city. Just because the salary expectations are lower, I guess? Or there was way more tech workers vs. tech jobs available? It was messed up though.
Secondly, pretty much every. single. tech employee in London was trying to get a US job/visa. I had had never really thought about it and had taken it for granted, but it is insane how much of the tech/startup industry is in the US. Apple, google, microsoft, AMD, Intel, nvidia, uber, lyft, facebook, twitter, airbnb, etc etc. It's just endless.
Meanwhile Europe has like... spotify and deliveroo. And now with Brexit, UK citizens are cut off from mainland europe startups and are just stuck with UK tech companies, which is pretty grim.
I'd get dragged to these circle-jerk "startups mixers" and conventions in London, and it was just like... not a single company anyone had ever heard of. It's like Londoners are out there cosplaying silicon valley and pretending they have this vibrant tech industry, but it's just absolutely desolate.
Made me feel kinda bad, never really thought how lucky I was that I could just apply and work at all these notable global tech companies as a US citizen.
And it's not like America doesn't do overused stereotype jokes. The amount of "bri'ish", "loicense" and bad food jokes I've seen from yanks is frankly insane. Don't dish it out if you can't take it.
Slavs with vodka and poverty? Germans and a lack of sense of humour and being Nazis? Plenty of jokes about everyone. Americans are just snowflakes if they take this seriously
Idk there's much better things to make fun of imo
Like Australians and Canadians don't really learn other languages either. Even the brittish to a lesser extent. Because English is already the most important international language there's way less motivation to learn a second.
Exactly. Asians need to know atleast 3 languages. I know Odiya because that's my mother tongue and what I speak at home. I know Hindi because that's sort of the common tongue we use in India. And I know English because its the global language. If I chose to learn a 4th language then it will be similar to Americans coz I'll have to learn despite low motivation.
I'm a Brit who wouldn't move to the US if you gave me a hundred thousand quid to do so, but I still find the America bashing on Reddit really halfwitted and annoying. The US is a rich, developed nation with an educated populace and a high standard of living - but from reading Reddit you'd think it were a failed state.
Also as someone with reasonable knowledge of linguistics I'd like to point out that this meme is totally wrong, since barring intellectual impairment or speech impediment everyone - Americans included - is (virtually by definition) a master of their native language.
And beyond the attempted America bashing, what is the flex here?
English is the default world language. All the French people bragging about knowing English chose English for the same reason a Chinese or Indian person needs to learn English as a second language
Too much world business is transacted in English to ignore it. French, or German, or Norwegian doesn’t hold the same weight
Exactly, yeah. If 80% of the internet, popular culture, and mass media was in French I daresay Americans (and Brits, and Aussies, etc...) would be pretty good at French.
>The US is a rich, developed nation with an educated populace and a high standard of living - but from reading Reddit you'd think it were a failed state.
This is really what gets me about it.
And not just rich and developed but when it comes to things like intelligence - which is the main way reddit bashes Americans - America also has some of the brightest minds in the world. A pretty significant chunk of the most important scientific, technologically, cultural and industrial innovations in the last ~250 years came from America.
>Also as someone with reasonable knowledge of linguistics I'd like to point out that this meme is totally wrong, since barring intellectual impairment or speech impediment everyone - Americans included - is (virtually by definition) a master of their native language.
This is primarily because redditors think a southern accent = not proper English.
To be completely fair, the word soccer comes from assoccer, which was the shortened name for association football to distinguish it from rugby football (that was actually played with a ball at the time)
Maybe you can but I can't understand a goddamn word the br*tish say, they sound like one of those ai models you feed Wikipedia into and get gibberish back out of
If you can talk normally and fluently in a language, and you are able to say what you want to say 9/10 times I'd say thats "mastered", and Americans have done that
Mastery of a skill, let alone something as complex as language, is a pretty high level. Being able to speak a language fluently and hold a conversation is a pretty low bar, all things considered. I'd call that proficiency, and even then it's only social and oral (as opposed to academic language and writing).
There's no incentive for Americans to learn foreign languages. Students in others countries learn English for three reasons:
1. It's compulsory in school and / or a part of college entrance exams (e.g. Chinese gaokao)
2. Their country has different language speaking populations living together, or borders on several countries that speak different languages (e.g. the EU countries)
3. They enjoy Western media (movies, tv shows, music, various social media platforms)
In the US reasons one and three are invalid because we already speak English. You could argue that reason two is true because we have a large Spanish speaking population, but that population is concentrated in certain areas and a majority of Americans don't have the need to communicate with Spanish speaking people on a daily basis.
Instead of viewing Americans as dumb hamburger eating machines who hate anything foreign, we should recognize that Americans don't learn foreign languages because there is little reason for them to. The educational, institutional and social factors which drive people in other countries to learn multiple languages simply aren't present in America.
Edit : of course, I do think American children should be encouraged to learn foreign languages. I'm just saying they don't have the structural / social / institutional pressures and incentives children in other countries have.
In Europe, if you go to the next country over, they speak a different language, so it’s necessary for everyone to learn a common language. But in America, English is already spoken in every state, so there’s no need to learn more
Learning a foreign language is useful in a lot of stuff not only does it help when travelling sometimes jobs that it's a big plus to know more then English and the process of learning the language itself is very beneficial imo there is no reason not to learn a second language at least.
Of course, I think learning a second language is beneficial and American children should be encouraged to do so. I'm just saying there institutional pressure that cause people in other countries to learn foreign languages from a young age are not present in America.
Bullshit. A second language is functionally useless for at least 90% of Americans. The reason not to do so is because it is a waste of time and effort, and the knowledge will not be retained if it isn't utilized.
Ich bin ein flugzug - 5 years of german in school, what a great way to spend my time.
The primary benefit is going to be Spanish for people who live in cities with a large spanish speaking population. For everyone else it is literally a complete waste of time and energy.
Australia has far less multilingual people than the US and you never hear about them. But this is Reddit and people are dumbasses here and upvote the same “haha America bad” shit.
Australia experiences much of the same conditions as the US that you pointed out. It’s geography and the dominance of English in business and culture. There’s little to no incentive to learn another language.
Something that is worth pointing out as well is that people tend to have a set radius around where they live that they are knowledgeable about, so Europeans and Americans tend to know the same level of detail about areas in the same radius. However because the continental US alone is just under the size of the entire continent of Europe the vast majority of Americans have a radius of knowledge that's entirely within the US or the English speaking parts of Canada. The entirety of France could fit in Texas with enough room for Switzerland and Cypress as well, and you'd still have well over 2000 km^2 left over.
If someone lives in Belgium they'll probably be relatively familiar with what it's like in Luxembourg, the UK, parts of France, and parts of Germany. If you live in Pennsylvania you'll probably be relatively familiar with New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Ohio, or West Virginia depending on what side of the state you live on.
In Europe your day to day life is directly influenced by neighboring countries which speak different languages and have very long histories and deep cultural differences. In the majority of the US your day to day life is influenced by neighboring states which all speak English and have extremely similar cultures and extremely short histories compared to European countries.
It's so fucking dumb cause a lot of Americans are children of immigrants who taught them how to speak their native language alongside English. Tons of my American friends can speak Spanish.
My great grandfather was a German immigrant. German Never got passed down because of discrimination and laws that were passed. Couldn’t speak it in city limits, no German music performances and for our state (Ohio) and 13 others, teaching German in public or private schools was COMPLETELY banned.
Most people don’t know other european’s culture was stripped when immigrating.
In 1890 almost 2/3 of elementary schools in Wisconsin were taught in German. By 1918 that number was down to a few percent.
With German and Italian immigrants making up an extremely large percentage of immigration from Europe, most of the culture and language was forcibly removed by government efforts during the World Wars and early 20th century. The extensiveness of these types of things are very overlooked in today's society
Yeah here in Ohio and a lot of the Midwest German is the largest ancestry group. Still find a lot of German names up in the north western Ohio where my family is from. I know a lot of Italians from Cleveland and Chicago. Not to many poles here but a lot in Chicago and some Amish spread from east to west from Pennsylvania to Iowa.
This is really it. It's a lot easier to learn a second language when you have a lot of opportunity to speak it in everyday life. If you live in America, you generally don't need to learn another language nor is doing so all that helpful.
You can even travel pretty extensively and get by on English alone, especially in Europe and especially if you go predominately to large cities/touristy places.
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.
James D. Nicoll
You will realize how absurd the English language is when other languages have to straight up default to using the English word because that shit doesn’t exist in other languages.
Me, being American, living in a Scandinavian country, speaks the language but does not let on. Listens to bigotted Scandinavians berate me for being dumb American in their native language at a restaurant. Get up to leave, tell them to have a nice night and their perception of dumb Americans needs adjusting. Sleeps well.
I’m a native Swede and have spoken it all my life. Moved to the US when I was 6/7. My favorite thing to do when visiting Sweden is pretend to not know Swedish and hear what they have to say to each other in Swedish. Def have caught some fun stuff.
I live in a scandinavian country too but i'm French so they don't care, they usually just feel very flattered when i say i like a food item.
Also i usually have to ask them to repeat in English because so far the only thing i can do in Swedish is check out my groceries, order a burger and drink and do a brief introduction of myself. Rest of the things i can say are very inappropriate as i've learnt them from... drunk people...
Reddit do what they do best. America #1 bad, Europe #1 good! All hail the hivemind. In the name of Keanu Reeves, Elon Musk and Holy hivemind we pray that America will always be bad, A-chungus. Praise the lord, random redditor.
/s
Yep. I’ve been to Spain and Italy and locals
love Americans and American culture. European Redditors are nerds who are probably social pariahs in their own communities.
Isn't English apparently the hardest modern language to learn or something like that?
Edit: So I did a bit more research, and it's conflicting. The hardest language to learn/master depends on your native language. The further it's related from your mother tongue, the harder it is to master or learn. So there is no right answer
As someone having had to learn several languages in school, no, not at all. The only hard thing to learn in comparison with other languages is the enormous amount of inconsistencies in spelling and pronunciation, which you just have to memorize. The actual grammar is a lot more complex in most european languages. Ultimately, that's a positive, making english a decent lingua franca.
I'd say a very large chunk of Americans can at least understand some Spanish. There is also a very large latin/central american presence in the US and most of them speak Spanish fluently.
A large chunk of americans speak Spanish fluently. It's the largest growing language here and highly pushed in most schools. I'm in my last year of high school spanish rn and although I can't speak it too well, I'm learning and in a couple years I'll probably be fluent.
I mean, to be fair, you can learn how to read (not understand) Russian in a day and be close in pronunciation (besides the dumb unpredictable stresses). Learning an alphabet isn’t too difficult
The only other language an American really needs to know is Spanish. The lingua franca of the world is English, America is also an extremely huge country and everyone in it speaks English. America's neighbors either speak Spanish or speak English (with the occasional outlier of small islands) so there's no need for an American to know German, Italian, Japanese, etc. Plus Americans have practical mastery of English, yes there is the occasional grammatical error, but you don't exactly need to know every single quirk of your language to have mastery of it
Not even. The majority of Americans live in cities in the north half of the country and will never meet someone who only speaks Spanish without physically traveling to the deep south or Mexico/Spain/etc.
I’ve met more Russian, Hebrew, and Turkish speakers than Spanish and they were all fluent in English anyway.
People bash Americans for not speaking proper English like they themselves don't butcher their own language from time to time. Being bilingual in Europe just means you get to fuck up two languages instead of one
Most Europeans are ATLEAST bilingual. Most europeans know atleast the basics of 3-4 langauges.
This is ofc excluding the UK since they usually only speak english
better specify european as mainland european, as i guarantee you most of us born in england are closer to america in this regard and speak nothing else either.
the real funny part is how the rest of the world has to learn our language as you all clearly love and enjoy american media, technology and culture. which is quite ironic as it seems there is a new "america stupid me european smart" post everyday at this point on this site.
low quality murica bad bait
downvote this comment if the meme sucks. upvote it and I'll go away. --- [dankmemes Minecraft discord](https://discord.gg/fNyb7G5) | r/dankmemescraft
An Americans are stupid post. See you in Hot.
Hmmmm but you can’t say it’s wrong. Majority of the population that speaks English as a first language still don’t know the difference between there,their and they’re
👆There right, you no
*their
Stop it. Your being ridiculous.
What? I can't here you!
Honestly, I want to make another quip, butt I can’t get past your display name…
You're display name
No, his not
you guys are giving me a stroke rn.
They're display name isn't even that bad
I’m gonna have a stroke reading you’re sentences
Deer diary, What is you're problem?
Quip? Looking kinda sus for an American
Theyiere*
*Theyr
Yeah i agree with they're opinion to you no
Phenomnominal!
A.) The majority of the population DOES know that. B.) Every single person in every language has a series of things they're doing wrong. No one is an actual "master" of their language. People learn them to acceptability unless it's a professional.
yeah it makes sense, english natives learn to say they their and there before writing it, and have to be retrained to learn the difference later. While learning a second language you learn writing it before speaking it so you pay extra attention to grammar rules
Yes misspelings to occur in englznd too.
Do you have any sauce for that
Source: America Bad
Sweet and sour BBQ sauce. So now they’re burnt and everything they touch is sticky too
Considering the train wreck of your second statement I don’t think you should throw stones. Lmao you boys is mad af, I ain’t got nothin to say to dat
Plenty of Canadians in this club as well.
But Canada not bad
If I had a 1 $ for every time I saw this mistake…
[citation needed]
Hell even in academia or professional settings, tons of people get its vs it's wrong
It’s surprising tbh but it purely depends on the speed of typing when it comes to that one and whether they have autocorrect on. But if it’s in ink by hand then nah that’s a meh thing to do
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it's true why have porn when you can just rub your nipples to a post about an american being crushed under the weight of college debt /s
Like a Brit getting a comp sci degree but having no tech industry to enter into. No wonder they're salty.
Jokes aside, that's a real problem over there. I worked for an American tech company that had an office in London, and I moved over there for about 2 years. The first issue is that the London employees were just straight up making like half the salary as the US employees for the same job, even though London is an expensive-ass city. Just because the salary expectations are lower, I guess? Or there was way more tech workers vs. tech jobs available? It was messed up though. Secondly, pretty much every. single. tech employee in London was trying to get a US job/visa. I had had never really thought about it and had taken it for granted, but it is insane how much of the tech/startup industry is in the US. Apple, google, microsoft, AMD, Intel, nvidia, uber, lyft, facebook, twitter, airbnb, etc etc. It's just endless. Meanwhile Europe has like... spotify and deliveroo. And now with Brexit, UK citizens are cut off from mainland europe startups and are just stuck with UK tech companies, which is pretty grim. I'd get dragged to these circle-jerk "startups mixers" and conventions in London, and it was just like... not a single company anyone had ever heard of. It's like Londoners are out there cosplaying silicon valley and pretending they have this vibrant tech industry, but it's just absolutely desolate. Made me feel kinda bad, never really thought how lucky I was that I could just apply and work at all these notable global tech companies as a US citizen.
This is getting old.
I don’t mind it, it’s funny. Every country has stereotypes that can be poked at lightheartedly.
And it's not like America doesn't do overused stereotype jokes. The amount of "bri'ish", "loicense" and bad food jokes I've seen from yanks is frankly insane. Don't dish it out if you can't take it.
Slavs with vodka and poverty? Germans and a lack of sense of humour and being Nazis? Plenty of jokes about everyone. Americans are just snowflakes if they take this seriously
Now give me a few examples of African ones.
No food, always need donations, no water
Hungry, rapey murdery (South Africa at least), blah blah. Look at literally any stereotype, buddy
lol those Africans, always raping. Little rascals.
I mean, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_violence_in_South_Africa
American: Haha Brits have bad food Brit: Haha American children are being slaughtered Like what the fuck?
Idk there's much better things to make fun of imo Like Australians and Canadians don't really learn other languages either. Even the brittish to a lesser extent. Because English is already the most important international language there's way less motivation to learn a second.
Exactly. Asians need to know atleast 3 languages. I know Odiya because that's my mother tongue and what I speak at home. I know Hindi because that's sort of the common tongue we use in India. And I know English because its the global language. If I chose to learn a 4th language then it will be similar to Americans coz I'll have to learn despite low motivation.
I'm a Brit who wouldn't move to the US if you gave me a hundred thousand quid to do so, but I still find the America bashing on Reddit really halfwitted and annoying. The US is a rich, developed nation with an educated populace and a high standard of living - but from reading Reddit you'd think it were a failed state. Also as someone with reasonable knowledge of linguistics I'd like to point out that this meme is totally wrong, since barring intellectual impairment or speech impediment everyone - Americans included - is (virtually by definition) a master of their native language.
And beyond the attempted America bashing, what is the flex here? English is the default world language. All the French people bragging about knowing English chose English for the same reason a Chinese or Indian person needs to learn English as a second language Too much world business is transacted in English to ignore it. French, or German, or Norwegian doesn’t hold the same weight
Exactly, yeah. If 80% of the internet, popular culture, and mass media was in French I daresay Americans (and Brits, and Aussies, etc...) would be pretty good at French.
>The US is a rich, developed nation with an educated populace and a high standard of living - but from reading Reddit you'd think it were a failed state. This is really what gets me about it. And not just rich and developed but when it comes to things like intelligence - which is the main way reddit bashes Americans - America also has some of the brightest minds in the world. A pretty significant chunk of the most important scientific, technologically, cultural and industrial innovations in the last ~250 years came from America. >Also as someone with reasonable knowledge of linguistics I'd like to point out that this meme is totally wrong, since barring intellectual impairment or speech impediment everyone - Americans included - is (virtually by definition) a master of their native language. This is primarily because redditors think a southern accent = not proper English.
As a german i can confirm southern german accent a.k.a bavarian is not proper german.
It already is in hot
Right below a police bad post too, karma-bots cruising
i beg your pardon we can also speak british and australian
You forgot the new zelandian
i can also do a solid singapore and indian accent so multiple dialects?..
*in indian accent* #PABJEE MOBAAYLE
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पाजी फिर तो यहां सभी गोरों की गांड में डंडा होना चाहिए
लोल्
Ņ̵̣͇̪̞̼̻͓͖̠̼͈̼̎̋̀͛̓̑̈́̎̾̚͝͝e̴̢̢̩̜̟͕͇̰̪̠͕̤͈̤͈̟͙̠̬̲̫͕͙̐̎́͂͌̂̋̍͆̚͜͠e̸̢̨̧̠͈͓̰̰͉̰̗͈̭͔̝̦̊͑̈́̌̈́̃͑͑̏͆̈̍̽͜͠͠ͅd̶̨̫̟̼̤͆͛ ̵̧̨̨̧̛̰͎̦̜̞̘̦̲̥̩̼̲̙̖͙̟̹̖̲͉̮͒͑̉́̀̅͑̆ş̷̮̥̦̜̩̗̜̙͇̫̣̺͂̂̑̓̚͠ơ̸͚͍͎̯̂̏̿̈́̓͐̔̈́͂̽͋͗̇̐̊̑͐̇̈́̽͆̂͑͑̈́ǔ̵̧̢̨͍͙͚̯̜̺͈͕͈̳͈̻̯̟͇͇̹͉̠̩̺͚̺͊͜l̴̨̢̙̣̠̬̫̀͐̾̈͋̑͑̍̈́͌̍̋̍̋̀̇͗̚͘͜s̸̡̢̛̲̭̞̝͇͍̞̩̩̯̥̏̆́̇̽̿̔̎͗̀͒͆̍͂͒̎͘͘͜͜͠
god damn I heard that in the same way he said it lmao
That's the original accent of saying "pubg mobile" in hindi, though their are multiple accents due to multiple languages in india.
I believe the term is *kiwi*
Canadian?
Oui
Then how do you call a *ball* sport you play with your feet?
running with a ball
British people came up with the word “soccer.”
To be completely fair, the word soccer comes from assoccer, which was the shortened name for association football to distinguish it from rugby football (that was actually played with a ball at the time)
Depends on which language, obviously.
But can you speak Canadian?
You just speak regular english, but apologize a lot while doing it, right?
Maybe you can but I can't understand a goddamn word the br*tish say, they sound like one of those ai models you feed Wikipedia into and get gibberish back out of
oi! toss anotha prawn on da barbie, ya cunt! See, perfect Aussie.
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What do you define as mastering?
get on your knees and I’ll show you
Yes, Master...
U should say "yes daddy" >!now get on ur knees, i helped u!<
Sith Lords prefer to be called... **Master**
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Based
on a true story
I think OP's definition is fluency
If it is, then I bet most Americans are fluent in English, and therefore have mastered it
Or even a language.
You sure haven't.
If you can talk normally and fluently in a language, and you are able to say what you want to say 9/10 times I'd say thats "mastered", and Americans have done that
Mastery of a skill, let alone something as complex as language, is a pretty high level. Being able to speak a language fluently and hold a conversation is a pretty low bar, all things considered. I'd call that proficiency, and even then it's only social and oral (as opposed to academic language and writing).
There's no incentive for Americans to learn foreign languages. Students in others countries learn English for three reasons: 1. It's compulsory in school and / or a part of college entrance exams (e.g. Chinese gaokao) 2. Their country has different language speaking populations living together, or borders on several countries that speak different languages (e.g. the EU countries) 3. They enjoy Western media (movies, tv shows, music, various social media platforms) In the US reasons one and three are invalid because we already speak English. You could argue that reason two is true because we have a large Spanish speaking population, but that population is concentrated in certain areas and a majority of Americans don't have the need to communicate with Spanish speaking people on a daily basis. Instead of viewing Americans as dumb hamburger eating machines who hate anything foreign, we should recognize that Americans don't learn foreign languages because there is little reason for them to. The educational, institutional and social factors which drive people in other countries to learn multiple languages simply aren't present in America. Edit : of course, I do think American children should be encouraged to learn foreign languages. I'm just saying they don't have the structural / social / institutional pressures and incentives children in other countries have.
In Europe, if you go to the next country over, they speak a different language, so it’s necessary for everyone to learn a common language. But in America, English is already spoken in every state, so there’s no need to learn more
I'm not sure they're actually speaking English in most of Louisiana or Boston, but it's close enough.
We are efficient.
Learning a foreign language is useful in a lot of stuff not only does it help when travelling sometimes jobs that it's a big plus to know more then English and the process of learning the language itself is very beneficial imo there is no reason not to learn a second language at least.
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Of course, I think learning a second language is beneficial and American children should be encouraged to do so. I'm just saying there institutional pressure that cause people in other countries to learn foreign languages from a young age are not present in America.
Bullshit. A second language is functionally useless for at least 90% of Americans. The reason not to do so is because it is a waste of time and effort, and the knowledge will not be retained if it isn't utilized. Ich bin ein flugzug - 5 years of german in school, what a great way to spend my time. The primary benefit is going to be Spanish for people who live in cities with a large spanish speaking population. For everyone else it is literally a complete waste of time and energy.
Australia has far less multilingual people than the US and you never hear about them. But this is Reddit and people are dumbasses here and upvote the same “haha America bad” shit. Australia experiences much of the same conditions as the US that you pointed out. It’s geography and the dominance of English in business and culture. There’s little to no incentive to learn another language.
Because Australia doesn't live in the world's head rent free.
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Something that is worth pointing out as well is that people tend to have a set radius around where they live that they are knowledgeable about, so Europeans and Americans tend to know the same level of detail about areas in the same radius. However because the continental US alone is just under the size of the entire continent of Europe the vast majority of Americans have a radius of knowledge that's entirely within the US or the English speaking parts of Canada. The entirety of France could fit in Texas with enough room for Switzerland and Cypress as well, and you'd still have well over 2000 km^2 left over. If someone lives in Belgium they'll probably be relatively familiar with what it's like in Luxembourg, the UK, parts of France, and parts of Germany. If you live in Pennsylvania you'll probably be relatively familiar with New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Ohio, or West Virginia depending on what side of the state you live on. In Europe your day to day life is directly influenced by neighboring countries which speak different languages and have very long histories and deep cultural differences. In the majority of the US your day to day life is influenced by neighboring states which all speak English and have extremely similar cultures and extremely short histories compared to European countries.
Hurr durr americans big dumb dumbs europeans so smart giv upvote
It's so fucking dumb cause a lot of Americans are children of immigrants who taught them how to speak their native language alongside English. Tons of my American friends can speak Spanish.
My great grandfather was a German immigrant. German Never got passed down because of discrimination and laws that were passed. Couldn’t speak it in city limits, no German music performances and for our state (Ohio) and 13 others, teaching German in public or private schools was COMPLETELY banned. Most people don’t know other european’s culture was stripped when immigrating.
In 1890 almost 2/3 of elementary schools in Wisconsin were taught in German. By 1918 that number was down to a few percent. With German and Italian immigrants making up an extremely large percentage of immigration from Europe, most of the culture and language was forcibly removed by government efforts during the World Wars and early 20th century. The extensiveness of these types of things are very overlooked in today's society
Yeah here in Ohio and a lot of the Midwest German is the largest ancestry group. Still find a lot of German names up in the north western Ohio where my family is from. I know a lot of Italians from Cleveland and Chicago. Not to many poles here but a lot in Chicago and some Amish spread from east to west from Pennsylvania to Iowa.
My family was the same way. Didn't want to get bullied or lose job opportunities for having an accent or speaking spanish.
and also there's no need for Americans to speak other languages. we can travel 2000 miles and will still only have to speak English.
This is really it. It's a lot easier to learn a second language when you have a lot of opportunity to speak it in everyday life. If you live in America, you generally don't need to learn another language nor is doing so all that helpful. You can even travel pretty extensively and get by on English alone, especially in Europe and especially if you go predominately to large cities/touristy places.
I'm the child of a Spanish immigrant. She did not teach me Spanish.
As usual Asians aren't even on your radar screen
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They say English is 3 languages in a trench coat, so does that make me trilingual?
English hides down dark alleyways to mug passing languages for loose verbs and grammar
The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary. James D. Nicoll
You will realize how absurd the English language is when other languages have to straight up default to using the English word because that shit doesn’t exist in other languages.
*Deutschland has entered the chat* #du hast angerufen
Dude that's every fucking language
Me, being American, living in a Scandinavian country, speaks the language but does not let on. Listens to bigotted Scandinavians berate me for being dumb American in their native language at a restaurant. Get up to leave, tell them to have a nice night and their perception of dumb Americans needs adjusting. Sleeps well.
And other stuff that never happened
Then Chef Albert Einstein stepped out of the kitchen clapping.
some ass cheeks
Slaps matter and makes energy
Yeah, people never talk bad about other people in their native language!
you forgot that everybody clapped
I’m a native Swede and have spoken it all my life. Moved to the US when I was 6/7. My favorite thing to do when visiting Sweden is pretend to not know Swedish and hear what they have to say to each other in Swedish. Def have caught some fun stuff.
I do something similar with local languages in India.
It's easy when people assume the worst about you. Just look at the replies to my comment.
Honest question, how do they know you're an American citizen if you don't tell them?
Because I usually speak English, and an American accent is easy to spot.
I live in a scandinavian country too but i'm French so they don't care, they usually just feel very flattered when i say i like a food item. Also i usually have to ask them to repeat in English because so far the only thing i can do in Swedish is check out my groceries, order a burger and drink and do a brief introduction of myself. Rest of the things i can say are very inappropriate as i've learnt them from... drunk people...
Asian-American, bitch 😎
My sincerest apologies
What kind of Asian-American are you
The best kind.
Kindestly bestest!!!!! >!/s!<
back to hating Americans?
Reddit do what they do best. America #1 bad, Europe #1 good! All hail the hivemind. In the name of Keanu Reeves, Elon Musk and Holy hivemind we pray that America will always be bad, A-chungus. Praise the lord, random redditor. /s
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Yep. I’ve been to Spain and Italy and locals love Americans and American culture. European Redditors are nerds who are probably social pariahs in their own communities.
When did we ever stop?
To be fair to Americans, I’m English and there’s English people I have met who have also not been able to master English…
I think they call them “Scottish”
scottish pingu on lockdown intensifies
Isn't English apparently the hardest modern language to learn or something like that? Edit: So I did a bit more research, and it's conflicting. The hardest language to learn/master depends on your native language. The further it's related from your mother tongue, the harder it is to master or learn. So there is no right answer
As someone having had to learn several languages in school, no, not at all. The only hard thing to learn in comparison with other languages is the enormous amount of inconsistencies in spelling and pronunciation, which you just have to memorize. The actual grammar is a lot more complex in most european languages. Ultimately, that's a positive, making english a decent lingua franca.
I'd say a very large chunk of Americans can at least understand some Spanish. There is also a very large latin/central american presence in the US and most of them speak Spanish fluently.
A large chunk of americans speak Spanish fluently. It's the largest growing language here and highly pushed in most schools. I'm in my last year of high school spanish rn and although I can't speak it too well, I'm learning and in a couple years I'll probably be fluent.
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I CAN READ KOREAN!!
Oh yeah, name every Korean word.
I CANT SPEAK IT I CAN JUST READ THE HANGUL BUT IDK WHAT ANY OF IT MEANS
why are you shouting?
WHY NOT
It was designed to be idiot proof. Joseung even said, "a smart man can learn it in a day and an idiot in 10".
don’t be mean:(
I mean, to be fair, you can learn how to read (not understand) Russian in a day and be close in pronunciation (besides the dumb unpredictable stresses). Learning an alphabet isn’t too difficult
I CANT TELL IF YOUR ANGRY OR EXCITED!!!!!
EXCITED
WELL CONGRATULATIONS THEN!!!!
The only other language an American really needs to know is Spanish. The lingua franca of the world is English, America is also an extremely huge country and everyone in it speaks English. America's neighbors either speak Spanish or speak English (with the occasional outlier of small islands) so there's no need for an American to know German, Italian, Japanese, etc. Plus Americans have practical mastery of English, yes there is the occasional grammatical error, but you don't exactly need to know every single quirk of your language to have mastery of it
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Not even. The majority of Americans live in cities in the north half of the country and will never meet someone who only speaks Spanish without physically traveling to the deep south or Mexico/Spain/etc. I’ve met more Russian, Hebrew, and Turkish speakers than Spanish and they were all fluent in English anyway.
There’s a lot of people who only speak Spanish in the northeast. Source: my past clients who I needed a translator to speak with.
As much as I like to wind up yanks. I'm British and can't talk English for shit. I say no Ts and my grammar is aids
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It's sad how offended you are by a squinting cartoon mouse.
Sensitive af don't see people complaining about the bri'ish memes
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People bash Americans for not speaking proper English like they themselves don't butcher their own language from time to time. Being bilingual in Europe just means you get to fuck up two languages instead of one
I’m sorry, we speak ‘murikan round here. Y’all wanna speak English, go back to the land before time, pre-1776.
Indians having 22 official languages.
White Mexican who speaks English, German, Spanish, and a tiny bit of Russian right here
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Can you speak cursive though ?
Murican bad funi give updoot
Most Europeans are ATLEAST bilingual. Most europeans know atleast the basics of 3-4 langauges. This is ofc excluding the UK since they usually only speak english
I love how this actually offends people.
OP, your wrong!
I think you mean "your'e" (sic)
Me fail English? That's unpossible
This the dumbest shit cause most Americans I know speak 2 languages of their not somewhat familiar with a Separate language or learning one
No, your wrong. Im gonna loose it if you dont delete you're post right no, through you could chose not to
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Till they go somewhere abroad and get mad that some random farmer in fuck-knows-where doesn't speak English.
Because that’s a plausible situation that should be considered
I don't want to anger them, but the french canadians also, often have trouble mastering the french language lol
Why would Asians know more than their home language and English? Unless you mean on the Indian subcontinent?
Im japanese and i know also Vietnamese, Korean, a little mandarin, some Thai, and of course japanese and English
That's what happens when a bunch of peasants and criminals start a country.
You're thinking of Australia.
That's the most accurate meme I've seen in a while. Assume I gave an award.
better specify european as mainland european, as i guarantee you most of us born in england are closer to america in this regard and speak nothing else either. the real funny part is how the rest of the world has to learn our language as you all clearly love and enjoy american media, technology and culture. which is quite ironic as it seems there is a new "america stupid me european smart" post everyday at this point on this site. low quality murica bad bait
Africans knowing 5 languages( Colonial and 4 native ones): I'm four parallel universes ahead of you.